An online news source about the DePaul University College of Law community.

October 30, 2014

International Aviation Law Institute Director Brian Havel participated in a workshop marking the 10th anniversary of the European Union's air passenger rights legislation. Held in Bruges, Belgium on September 27, the workshop was co-organized by the Institute of European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford and the College of Europe in Bruges.

The workshop featured national reports from many EU Member States on the implementation of the EU legislation over the past decade. Professor Havel presented the only non-EU report, discussing creative efforts by U.S. lawyers to try to apply the EU legislation extraterritorially in U.S. courts and also surveying the spread of "copycat" legislation throughout the world.

Co-chair of the workshop, Professor Jeremias Prassl of Magdalen College, Oxford, is a frequent participant in the institute's activities. He has contributed a number of pieces to Issues in Aviation Law & Policy, the institute's academic journal, and has taught the law of EU air passenger rights in the Institute’s advanced seminar in international aviation law.

The event was hosted by Quadrant, one of the UK’s top barristers’ chambers specializing in aviation and maritime law, in the main hall of their historic Fleet Street headquarters. After an introduction by Robert Lawson, Q.C., Professor Havel spoke on the autonomy of international aviation law as an academic discipline. He also briefly surveyed some recent topical issues in the field including the double Malaysian Airlines tragedies, Russian restrictions on overflights and the attempt by a Norwegian airline to set up an Irish low-cost subsidiary to fly routes to the United States from other EU countries.

Finishing on a somewhat lighter note, Professor Havel weighed up the respective legal rights of passengers who wish to recline their seats and passengers behind them who use anti-recline “knee defender” devices. All of these issues, he concluded, can be analyzed within the framework of his new book.

October 23, 2014

A key to rolling out the Federal Aviation Administration’s satellite-based Next Generation Air Traffic Management System — NextGen — will be making sure the technologies are compatible internationally, FAA Deputy Administrator Michael G. Whitaker told a capacity audience at yesterday's fourth annual IALI/Chaddick Lunch Lecture, held at DePaul University College of Law.

Whitaker, who serves as the FAA's chief NextGen officer, discussed the ongoing talks between U.S. and European Union authorities to assure compatibility between NextGen and the EU version, known as SESAR. Compatibility of U.S. and EU air traffic management systems likely would guarantee buy-in from aviation authorities in Asia and elsewhere, and provide relatively seamless satellite-based air traffic control worldwide, he added.

Whitaker emphasized NextGen's ability to significantly reduce aircraft fuel consumption by enabling planes to make more gradual descents from greater distances, which allows the engines to run at idle during the longer landing approaches. This also results in less aircraft noise near airports.

The convention, which has had a major impact on the multibillion dollar aircraft purchasing and leasing sector, facilitates the registration of international security interests in mobile equipment such as aircraft.

Professor Havel discussed the potential consequences of the fact that national courts will be responsible for interpreting and applying the provisions of the convention and the aircraft protocol, both of which lack independent international mechanisms to settle disputes between private investors and the participating States.

Warning against a process of “re-nationalization” by local courts of the provisions of the convention and protocol, he called for the creation of international arbitration panels that would displace national courts in resolving investor/state disputes under the Cape Town Convention system.

Gerber, who is the author of several key texts in this field and chairs the aircraft corporate finance group at Chicago law firm Vedder Price, teaches the Institute's International Aircraft Finance Law course.

September 25, 2014

DePaul's International Aviation law Institute welcomed 3,000 delegates to the 20th World Route Development Forum with an exhibit on civil aviation's landmark Chicago Convention treaty, a high-level panel discussion on the future of airline regulation, and an address predicting the look of aviation in 2044.

Held September 20 to 23, 2014, at Chicago's McCormick Place, the event brought together the largest range of airlines, airports, tourism authorities, civil aviation authorities and other stakeholders worldwide. This year's forum was held in Chicago to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Chicago Convention, the treaty that established the International Civil Aviation Organization and governs the conduct of international civil aviation.

To commemorate the Chicago Convention's 70th anniversary, visitors to the exhibit hall were greeted by IALI's welcome pod, containing historic film and video of the conference that created the Convention in 1944. At the pod's center was an original signed Chicago Convention, which was donated to one of our professors by the U.S. Department of State. Staffing the pod and greeting visitors is IALI Founding Director and Professor Brian Havel, IALI Executive Director Steve Rudolph, FedEx/United Airlines Resident Research Fellow John Mulligan, and third-year law student Dan Ross, symposium editor of the DePaul Law Review.

On Sunday, September 21, Professor Havel moderated "Getting 'Smart' About Regulation: The Regions Have Their Say," a panel discussion centered on the viability of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in an age of regionalism. Primary topics included whether the era of multilaterial regulation via ICAO is fading and if future civil aviation regulation should take place at the regional level. The panel members were Vijay Poonoosamy, vice president of international and public affairs, Etihad Airways; IALI advisory board member Sandra Chiu, president, Centre for Aviation Policy and Economics; Sebastian Mikosz, CEO, LOT; and Jeremy Robinson, legal director, Hill Dickinson LLP (London).

Following the panel discussion, John Byerly, IALI advisory board member and former deputy assistant secretary of state, presented "Aviation in 2044 -- 100 Years After the Chicago Convention," a look 30 years into the future of civil aviation. Byerly offered his insights from the perspective of a long career as a U.S. diplomat, during which he became the architect of many of the world's Open Skies air transport agreements.

DePaul placed first for Best LLM Program and Best Law School Clinical Program in Chicago.

The College of Law offers four LLM programs and seven clinical programs. LLM programs focus on the areas of health law, intellectual property law, international law and taxation. DePaul's clinical programs include the Asylum & Immigration Law Clinic, Civil Rights Clinic, Criminal Appeals Clinic, Family Law Clinic, Housing & Community Development Legal Clinic, Misdemeanor Clinic and Poverty Law Clinic. The legal clinics also received NLJ Best of Chicago honors in 2012.

DePaul took third place in two other survey categories: Best Overall JD Program and Best Joint JD/MBA Program.

More than 1,200 readers voted in this year's NLJ reader’s choice survey.

July 14, 2014

Two seminars conducted by International Aviation Law Institute Director Brian Havel highlighted the institute's most recent visit to the headquarters of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in mid-April. The first seminar focused on ownership restrictions and alliances in the international airline industry. In the second seminar, Professor Havel considered the ongoing debate about whether multilateralism or regionalism (or a blend of both) should be the locus for future regulation of the industry, and he critically assessed how international law and institutions have handled the search and rescue process for the disappeared Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

After the seminars, Professor Havel and global airline consultant Sandra Chiu, a member of IALI’s Foundation Advisory Board, were the guests of honor at a CAAC banquet hosted by Han Jun, CAAC’s director-general for international affairs. Director-General Han’s office handles all of China’s external aviation relations, including bilateral air services agreements and he has been a guest of IALI in Chicago. Professor Havel presented Director-General Han with a copy of his new book, The Principles and Practice of International Aviation Law (Cambridge Press 2014).

June 26, 2014

IALI Director Brian Havel during a 2014 International Air Transport Association panel discussion

Government should practice "smart" regulation and be more open-minded regarding the airline industry's challenges, International Aviation Law Institute Director Brian F. Havel declared at the 70th Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), held in Doha, Qatar earlier this month.

Professor Havel was part of a panel convened to discuss government and industry relations, under the provocative tagline “Where is the Love?” His fellow panelists were U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson; Margus Rahuoja, chef de cabinet to Siim Kallas, the EU commissioner for transport; Marion Blakey, president and CEO of Aerospace Industries Association and former FAA administrator; and Andrew Herdman, director general of the Asia-Pacific Airlines Association.

A DePaul College of Law moot court team comprised of four first-year students placed third in the 2014 Beijing Foreign Studies University-Wanhuida Cup Intellectual Property Moot Court Competition in Beijing, China, on May 24 and 25.

Teammates Precious Allen, Joseph Klein, Destinee Moyer and Shin Young Jo competed against 13 teams from Australia, China, Taiwan and the United States. DePaul's brief was ranked 4th overall and team member Precious Allen won the competition's Best Oralist Award. Shin Young Jo also was recognized as an outstanding oralist.

Professor Len Cavise coached the team in Beijing, and professors Michael Grynberg, Joshua Sarnoff, Anthony Volini and Michael Graham prepared the team prior to the competition.

May 12, 2014

In a recent profile for DePaul’s online magazine, Distinctions, Professor Patty Gerstenblith talks about art and cultural heritage law and why DePaul’s program is a leader in the field.

The discipline of art and cultural heritage law itself is a relatively new field. I have been teaching at DePaul for 30 years and have benefitted from being in the right place, at the right time: The field and I grew up together.

Perhaps the aspect I like most about the field is its interdisciplinary nature: Teaching it requires some knowledge of art history, archaeology, anthropology, history, international relations and other academic fields. One thing we do well at DePaul College of Law is to look at the big picture. Here, art and cultural heritage law is affiliated with two other areas: intellectual property and international law. Both of these programs at DePaul are nationally recognized. As a result, our students graduate with a broad set of practical skills.

"When I say DePaul is 'the right place' for exploring cultural heritage, I mean that literally. Here, we appreciate and respect different cultures set against a global environment."

I have been fortunate to serve twice on the President’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the Department of State, currently as the committee’s chair. The committee makes recommendations to the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs as to whether the United States should enter into bilateral agreements with other nations to restrict the import into the U.S. of undocumented archaeological and ethnological materials.